Reviews

Finally a water bottle with no plastic chemicals or…

Finally a water bottle with no plastic chemicals or aluminum. Solidly engineered with a well thought out design and quality construction from high grade Stainless Steel and no metallic taste at all. It has standard Nalgene size mouth/threads that works with my water filter and other accessories. Being Stainless I can put it right on my stove to boil/heat water, make tea/coffee and eliminate a pot. GSI is a trusted name in the industry and a family business with customer service that addresses any problems without question. Even a place built in to store Duck Tape!

Years ago my day hike excursions began to grow past the capacity of a couple bottles of Poland Spring from the 7/11 just before my favorite patch of woods. I was now using a water filter to take water from along my route and wanted the bottles that would screw neatly into the bottom of my MSR Miniworks filter for easier water resupply till I found my third hand.

At the time, choices were few and I bought my first Nalgene bottles. There wasn't much else in that aisle at Campmor back then. Not long after that I put them away and refused to use them. Every time I took a drink I could taste plastic/chemicals and had visions of 55 gallon chemical drums and test tubes haunting my backcountry, fresh air, healthful experience...

Back then, more then 12 years ago, the warnings about BPA in plastic didn't exist, especially in the mainstream, but in my world, chemicals leaching from plastic, whatever name they went by, were something to be avoided at all costs. As society has slowly caught up, BPA has been appropriately demonized and now, quickly removed from most plastics and sometimes...claimed to be "BPA Free" and found to be present anyway. But, even though the main streammedia hasn't decided to talk about them yet... there are other chemicals of concern and I prefer to stay far away from plastics whenever possible. (I'm one of those "Organic, healthnut people")

Over the years I had grudgingly gone back to PET (the more innocuous plastic) bottled water, used glass bottles including 1/2 gallon beer growlers... (got thrown out of the UL club for that one), carried water in hydration bladders including the first Camelbaks with the nasty vinyl bladder and again when I was able to find one made with Polypropylene rather than vinyl.

Longing for a good water bottle, I started looking at the now numerous metal alternatives. Aluminum is also a no-go for me due to metal leaching. After finding the GSI Glacier Dukjug, a Stainless Steel bottle, a bunch of research, I hit the local outdoor store that carried them. It was love at first sight.

The GSI Stainless Dukjug is very rigid and very quickly shows signs of well thought out engineering. I'm prone to thinking about what other ways a piece of gear could serve other then the intended design either for redundancy or to double up and eliminate a piece of gear for weight savings. Between backpacking and deepwater diving I have a serious "be prepared for anything" mentality, so when I saw the way the bottle was designed to hold {trumpets please} DUCK TAPE! I could hardly contain myself.

Cam shaped lobe on the lid makes it easy to open dry/wet/cold/frozen/with heavy gloves on.

The tether which holds the cap, unlike it's much hated, ugly plastic cousin, that would eventually break and from there on be useless, is a simple but well made braided nylon cord that I expect to last for decades, but should it ever fail, can be easily replaced at home or in the field.

The Silicone rubber grip skirt is very effective, even my then seven year old son could hold it one handed, yet flush with the bottle due to the dog bone shape.

The dog bone shape along with a radiused top and bottom make it substantially stronger than more cheaply manufactured bottles. The Stainless Steel is high grade metal and takes a beating with no complaints.

The wide mouth screws onto my MSR Miniworks water filter as well as myriad other accessories using the same standard "Nalgene" threads and easily allows you to put in things like ice cubes, snow, tea bags. It also lets me get in there with brushes/scrubbies for an occasional thorough cleaning.

The metal bottle as opposed to plastic, besides the lack of chemicals, if needed for emergency purification by boiling, can be put directly on a camp stove or hot coals of a fire. Heat water/soup, make your tea or java directly in your canteen. They even have an accessory tea coffee filter that screws onto the mouth (H2jO). On winter trips you can thaw frozen water or keep the temperature from dropping too close to freezing, even to make a nice hot water sleeping bag heater. {Warning: Never, ever heat water in a closed bottle, take the cap off and turn it upside down on top of the bottle. Your first steam explosion could be your last.} I've heated water up to a full rolling boil several times, there weren't any negative effects on the bottle, skirt or lid/threads.

The design of the bottle shape has an integrated space to hold Duck Tape. The manufacturer claims it will hold 2 meters (78 inches) worth. I put on approx. 65 inches (165 cm.) and stopped there as I felt more was going to make the rubber mesh grip protrude past flush with the bottle side and I wanted it to remain flush so as not to cause any issues with sliding it in/out of backpack pockets and such. Yes, you can wrap tape around most any bottle but this one took it into account in the design phase and the resulting shape seems to make the walls more rigid.

Radius top & bottom with "Dogbone" center = Strength + built in Duck Tape storage & a rubber grip while remaining flush with the rest of the bottle.

"But Stainless weighs so much more than plastic" Not when you can leave the second pot at home it doesn't. Heat up your soup, make your Tea or Java while your cooking your eggs in your pot. Or Leave your pot at home and do the boil/re-hydrate thing with just your water bottle.

I purchased my first GSI Stainless Dukjug in June of 2010, two years now. Besides at least monthly hiking/paddling/camping/diving trips in rugged mountainous terrain in all four seasons, it receives almost daily use for work, kids sports — lately being kicked around a dugout three nights a week, plain old water on the go and has proved reliable and well made. Best of all, my water tastes like... water.

Areas for improvement/Dislikes:

I think the lid design would be improved by adding an o-ring seal inside the groove where the bottle mates to the lid. A positive seal and a little compression to insure it doesn't work loose. It's rarely leaked but this would just make it bullet proof & earn it that extra half star I left out.

It comes with a removable "Sip-it lid" that snaps into the inside of the mouth opening providing a smaller opening to sip from with another hole to allow air in as you drink. I found it mostly useless and manage to spill/dribble just as much if not more with it then without it. Water tends to collect on top of it and spill out when you open it/tip it up at your mouth.

I gave it several tries to see if I would get used to it then tossed it in a kitchen drawer awaiting some future spring cleaning into the trash. (One ounce lighter... Maybe the UL club will let me back in!) The silicone rubber O-ring that holds it in and seals the opening tends to pull out of it's groove and hang up causing it to not seat properly. I found it works better if you wet it for lubrication before trying to put it in.

I have to turn it upside down in my truck as only the lid fits in the cup holder, but I can live with this.

Some trouble along the way:

About a year after the first purchase, a crack formed in the lid, running parallel to the top. I had heard that this was a common defect with them and it was attributed to a bad plastic from a lid manufacturer they weren't using any more.

I called them and they asked me to read some numbers on the underside of the lid. It fell in before the date when they resolved this problem. She said they would mail me a new lid. Didn't want the old one back or any proof of a problem.

I did mention that I had a second bottle that I didn't have with me at the time and how would I know from the number code if it was the good or the bad plastic batch. She told me the cutoff date and how to read the code and said she would send two new lids just in case the other one ever did crack! The other lid was after the cutoff date and so far has never had a problem.

The customer service behind a product is as important as the product and GSI gets kudos for theirs.

Would I recommend the GSI Stainless Dukjug to a friend? Absolutely! I've already bought more for myself and my family.

Work great for a while, but had problems with rust.

I bought two of these bottles for my Mountainsmith Tour pack. I like that they're stainless steel. They open easy and close easy.

It came with a clear plastic cover to help you drink your water. If you have little kids I know you need to use this or all your water will be on the ground. The problem is the plastic cover makes it harder to screw on the lid. I feel you'll cross thread or lose your water due to this cover. Also it's clear, you drop it and it's gone, or very dirty. I keep the cover at home.

The rubber grip is great and it holds the water, when full it makes more noise, once you drink a few oz of water the noise goes away, here's a link. I filled both bottles and turn them upside down for 24 hours, no leaks. Works for me. I use bottles because they are easier to clean.

Update: May 30, 2011

This is a follow up to the bottles, both of them have started to rust on the outside. They have been clean after each hike. I have been looking inside the bottles and have been seeing yellow stains, very light in color.

I would estimate I used them more than 50 hikes. I feel Stainless Steel should not rust. I want the most for my money, but I guess plastic is the way to go for now.

I also have a Kanteen model stainless steel but will not write about it for a few months.

I got these bottles from backcountry edge and told them about my problem, they told me to keep the bottle and sent me the plastic version of these bottles. They went out of their way to make me happy.